A Forest Park police officer spotted a 1993 Lincoln Continental missing registration plates stopped at a traffic light while heading westbound at Jackson Boulevard and Harlem Avenue. According to a police report, the driver of the car, later identified as Letitio Oliver of Chicago, appeared to “tense up” when he saw the squad car. He turned southbound on Harlem Avenue, and then headed westbound on the I-290, with police in pursuit.

The officer activated his emergency lights as the car passed 1st Avenue, and the car pulled over to the shoulder of the road and slowed down, giving the impression that he would pull over at the next exit ramp. Instead, the car soon accelerated to over 85 miles per hour. The officer stopped the chase for safety reasons, but sent descriptions of the car to surrounding police departments.

Soon after, the car was surrounded and stopped by officers from Westchester and LaGrange. Several bags of suspected heroin were found in the car, and both Oliver and the passenger were taken into custody by Forest Park police.

Oliver told police that the drugs belonged to him, and that his passenger did not know they were in the car. The passenger said that he had fallen asleep in the car after he and Oliver had been watching television and smoking marijuana at a friend’s house in Oak Park.

He woke up to find the car spinning out of control, and Oliver told him “we are in a high speed police chase.” He also said he did not know the drugs were in the car.

Oliver was charged with aggravated fleeing and eluding and possession of a controlled substance.

Stolen car found on Adams

Police were patrolling the 7500 block of Adams Street Feb. 18 after receiving complaints of drug activity. When officers ran the plates on a 1999 Toyota parked on the block, they found out the car had been reported stolen from Hines, Illinois. The driver, Tracy White of Maywood, told police that he “got it from some black guy in Maywood,” but refused to give any further information. Police later found a crack-pipe and a vinyl case with several foreign coins in White’s backpack, both of which were inventoried as evidence. White was charged with criminal trespass to a vehicle and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Another gutter theft reported

A resident of the 7500 block of Randolph Street told police that a downspout attached to the side of her condo was apparently stolen the night of Feb. 14. On the 15th, she said, her boyfriend found a statue and grill on the porch had been moved, and upon further investigation discovered that a 10 to 15 foot section of downspout was missing. It did not appear that anything else had been tampered with. The incident follows numerous recent gutter thefts in Oak Park and Forest Park, including several incidents at the First United Church of Christ, 1000 Elgin Ave.

Parked car damaged

A woman reported that her car had been damaged while parked on the 200 block of Brown Avenue on Feb. 22. The victim and two friends said they were inside their home when they saw a man looking suspiciously at cars parked on the block. His car, a gold Buick Century, was parked in a nearby alley. They went outside several times to check on the man, and during one inspection they found that his car was gone, and the rear windshield of the woman’s red Chevrolet Metro was shattered. The woman found nothing missing from her car. She suspected that the incident might have been retaliation by a friend of a man who was recently caught after burglarizing the home.

These items were taken from the records of the Forest Park Police Department between Feb. 14 to 24, 2006 and represent only a portion of the incidents to which police responded. Anyone named in this report had only been charged with a crime. The cases have not yet been adjudicated.

” Compiled by Seth Stern